Veronica, the girl who had entranced a vampire so much he’d broken into St. Sophia’s just for the chance to get a look at her, stared off into space. To each her own, I guess.

When the convent bells sounded after class, we all grabbed our books and headed to our lockers. Since St. Sophia’s was a fancy-pants private school, juniors and seniors had glossy wooden lockers in a separate bay outside the classrooms. Mine was right below Scout’s, my name engraved on a small metal plate on the outside.

Veronica and M.K. stood a few lockers down. Both of them had decided on lots of jewelry today. Yellow necklaces were loaded around their necks in gleaming tangles. If that was high fashion, I wanted no part of it.

M.K. had her back to a locker while Veronica pulled books from hers.

My mind on Nicu, I eavesdropped while I exchanged my books.

“I thought you wanted to go to Sneak with Creed,” M.K. was telling her. “You talked about him for, like, two weeks.”

John Creed was a friend of Jason’s, and the guy Veronica had crushed—at least before she ran into Nicu.

“I did,” Veronica said with a shrug. She paused, hand in her locker, and looked over at Mary Katherine. “I’m just not feeling him right now.”

“Um, why? He’s rich, hot, and rich. And he’s a fantastic kisser.”

Ick. Turned out that when Veronica had been crushing on Creed, M.K. had been hitting on him. (I know. She was totally a class act.) Veronica looked as disgusted—and betrayed—as I felt.

“He isn’t my type,” Veronica said dryly. I had to agree with her. Anyone who would make out with Mary Katherine wasn’t my type, either.

“He was your type two weeks ago,” M.K. persisted. “You were totally crazy about him.”

My stomach turned nervously as I waited for her answer—and silently bet that I knew what had changed. Yes, I’d kind-of-sort-of agreed to let Nicu meet Veronica. But if she was already so smitten that she didn’t care about Creed, there was going to be fireworks. And fireworks probably meant drama for me.

“I don’t know,” Veronica repeated, her voice testier this time. Books in hand, she slammed her locker shut. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

She started walking my way, and I turned my gaze back to my own locker, but not fast enough. She caught me staring and gave me a look. “You totally interrupted Lisbeth and Charlie last night. I hear you’re the one who called Foley, and you practically assaulted Charlie. What are you, some kind of freak?”

“And you were with that freak Barnaby,” M.K. threw in, like that was a crime.

Was Lisbeth’s story that we interrupted a make-out session on purpose? So much for gratitude.

“I didn’t interrupt anyone,” I said, “and I didn’t tell Foley. Lisbeth can do whatever she wants. We were just walking back to my room.”

“Liar,” M.K. maliciously said.

I glanced over and gave them a dubious look. “Have you looked in the mirror lately? You look like a jewelry store threw up on your uniform. Now, that’s freaky. Go to class.”

They threw out some snarky comments, but left us at our lockers. When I looked back at Scout, her eyes were wide.

“That totally just happened.”

It had happened, and I felt immediately guilty. My parents had taught me better than to be obnoxious just because someone had been obnoxious to me. But I’d saved Lisbeth, and I’d ended up with no firespell. Was it a coincidence? Maybe. But a thank-you would have nice.

“It totally did,” I grumbled. “And not that she’s my favorite person right now, but I think Nicu’s in luck.”

Scout frowned, and glanced back to watch Veronica walk the hallway. “Why?”

“Because she doesn’t like Creed anymore.”

“How is that news? I don’t like Creed, either.”

“I think she doesn’t like Creed because she hasn’t totally forgotten about Nicu.”

“At least he’s having a good day. Let’s see how else this day can go down the tubes.”

As it turned out, our trig teacher rescheduled our midterm exam.

To tomorrow.

I loved it when teachers were understanding.

6

We were on our way to civics—only one more class before lunch—when I got the text. I’d forgotten to turn off my phone and pulled it out of my bag assuming it was my parents, maybe with an apology about having to miss parents’ night.

It definitely wasn’t my parents.

It was Sebastian Born—the Reaper who’d given me firespell.

“WE NEED TO TALK” was all it said.

I pulled Scout out of the flow of traffic and showed her the phone. Her expression immediately went suspicious. Sebastian had contacted me before, and she hadn’t been thrilled about it.

“Have you been talking to him?” she asked.

I rolled my eyes. “If by talking to him, you mean reading this single text message and then showing it to you as soon as I got it, then yes, I have.”

“Har har har. I know you two are buds.”

“We aren’t buds. He thinks we’ve bonded because we both have firespell.”

“Have you texted him back yet?”

“Not yet.”

She crossed her arms and frowned like she was seriously puzzling something over. “I think you should go talk to him.”

I blinked back shock. That was the last thing I expected her to say. “Excuse me?”